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Plan for vintage Limited Edition skins

For the past year, we’ve been exploring ways to solve a conundrum with Limited Edition skins. Here’s the crux of the issue:

During events from December 2009 through October 2011, we released 34 skins for a limited time and communicated they wouldn’t come back into the store.

Since then, our playerbase has grown so much that these skins are virtually never seen in game

The most common, Bewitching Nidalee, appears once every 971 games in NA

The least common, Ice Toboggan Corki, appears once every 116,586 games in NA

Every day we receive heartfelt emails with compelling stories from players asking for the chance to own or gift their favorite skin, either because they missed the brief store window due to travel, illness, deployment, etc., or because they hadn’t joined the LoL community yet.

We think it’s important to solve this, especially since we believe skins are primarily about self-expression and fun, not exclusivity. We’ve evaluated solutions such as a trading auction or achievement system, but each has significant negatives. We also feel that, while it’s important we solve this problem for the majority of players, it’s equally important that we preserve value for those who do own these skins.

Taking all that into account, we decided on the following solution:

The 34 Limited Edition skins will become available for purchase or gifting for a limited time during the following months:

Harrowing 2010 & 2011 skins during October 2013

Snowdown Showdown 2009 & 2010 skins during December 2013

Winter Games 2010 skins during February 2014

World Cup 2010 skins during June 2014

Given the reduction in exclusivity, we will be providing the following compensation to the original owners of these skins:

Going forward these 34 skins will be considered Legacy skins, and may on rare occasion also come back for future events without additional compensation

Please note these changes don’t have any effect on:

Limited Edition skins that were once in the store but are not part of these events (Rusty Blitzcrank, Urf Warwick, Championship Riven, Riot Singed).If these skins are ever brought back, they will be treated similarly.

Earned Limited Edition skins that were rewarded for events or achievements and never appeared in the store (PAX Twisted Fate, King Rammus, Victorious Jarvan, UFO Corki, etc.). We have no plans to make these skins available.

Other Legacy skins (Riot K9 Nasus, Zombie Brand, Nottingham Ezreal, etc.), which may still come back into the store from time to time without compensation

We believe this is the best solution for the overall playerbase, and look forward to hearing your feedback. To answer your questions on this and other eCommerce decisions, policies and features, we’re hosting an AMA on Reddit, Tuesday October 15, at 12pm Pacific Time. See you there!

Here is the list of affected skins and when they will temporarily become available in the store (at some point during the month):